Serious question, what do you think the Democrats' key mistakes were? What should they have done?

In essence, I think they framed a guilty man. I personally found Ford's testimony quite credible, particularly given how Kavanaugh responded to it. But the timing of when it was released and the Democratic theatrics around it didn't do Ford any favors.

In terms of the timing, the testimony on its own wasn't strong enough to stand, and the timing made a full investigation that much less likely.

Then, the theatrics: Dems were both apocalyptic and apoplectic around Kavanaugh PRE-accusations, so they had nowhere to go from there. They were transparently looking for any excuse to torpedo the nomination. It fed all too easily into the GOP counter-narrative of an innocent man martyred by political hacks.

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And now the Republican base is all riled up. They're going to show up to vote next month.

This.

However, a month is an eternity in the Trump era... who knows what we'll all be thinking and feeling by then.

And given thankfullness is not a voting motivator, all the "We need to prevent the Democrats from blocking our candidate" and "NOW we have a chance to get in a supreme judge" is gone. Republicans have to combat a "We won, now we can go home" attitude now, i guess.

That's why the Republicans are out there stoking resentment. "Look at those psychotic Democrats! Those feminazi SJWs tried to ruin an innocent man's life over politics! If you don't vote them out they will persecute all men!"

Trump may be an idiot but he as a finely tuned instinct for taking advantage of wounded egos.

I don't know if it's quite that cut and dried. The lowlifes in his base are only likely to be really fired up by Trump's efforts to make the GOP over into the party of rape to the extent that they are men. The women already got to see their known career felon and sex criminal installed in the Supreme Court; there's not much else for them to be motivated by here.

I'm pretty sure I saw a poll saying that Republican-leaning women became more motivated to vote for Republicans due to the whole Kavanaugh debacle. They believe they're protecting their husbands and sons who are good people who would never do such a terrible thing but the world is full of mentally unstable ex-girlfriends who could ruin their husbands' and sons' lives (and by extension their own marriages and mortgages and retirement plans) in an instant.

The polling I've seen has that, but it also has a dropping number of women identifying as Republican. If so, it's just the evaporative cooling of beliefs in action: as the less extreme escape, the remainder is more extreme.

Silly bomber, sending them out three weeks early. At least we know it was the press (but not Fox) and the Democrats who are to blame. Anyway, we know that if we're in the reactionary bubble. If not? Another explanation might suggest itself. One wonders if this is going to be this years October Surprise.

Nope, that would be the synagogue shooting. The recent stock market slump has put a slight dent in Trump's ability to brag about the best economy in the history of economies, which is why he's turned the xenophobia up to 11. That won't play so well with independents in the wake of a hate crime massacre, at least among the ones who don't get immediately defensive about their guns.

I'm still a bit worried though. Youth and Hispanic turnout still look rather iffy, and the Hispanic voters are actually slightly more pro-Trump than registered Democrats generally. Immigrants who've obtained citizenship are often rock hard conservatives who despise the poor (I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, why can't they?) and don't give a crap about mistreatment of the undocumented (throw them out, the cheaters). My husband's related to the Asian version of them.

True, but it's hard to vote for someone who wants to take away your right to vote (among other things). There are only so many Jews for Hitler in the world. And you'd think after the example of the first batch the rest would learn, but no...

Happens all the time. I've got Fox News-watching, likely Trump-voting relatives in Texas. Nice people, but they probably think none of the anti-immigrant rhetoric applies to them because they're assimilated and financially successful and well-educated and Jesus-worshipping. Even if it did worry them, it'd take a lot to push them to vote for a radical socialist (a.k.a. anyone to the left of Lindsay Graham). When I visited them in 2016 with the campaign in full swing, they seemed more worried about transgender people invading their loos than any of the crazy stuff Trump was spewing, and this was right after he insulted that Muslim gold star family.

And I haven't even gotten to my husband's gleefully racist uncle. He's Vietnamese. Thinks Hispanics and black people are all lazy criminals. Doesn't even like other Asians that much, especially any browner than he is - flipped out at his daughter for dating gasp, a Filipino.

I don't even know what to make of this supposed hoax to smear Mueller with sexual assault accusations. Those allegedly trying to frame him were daft enough to implicate themselves, firstly in the shady email by a non-existent woman who claimed she was offered money to accuse Mueller, and secondly in the threatening phone-call to a journalist trying to verify the story. Either these guys were dumb enough to spell out their plan and name themselves, or some third party is trying to frame these bozos for trying to frame Mueller which is a level of crazy that makes my head hurt.

Incidentally, here's the latest polling from Fivethirtyeight. There's somewhere between 100 and 130 competitive House districts, which is a lot. The Democrats need to win 23 to flip the House. However, they are only solidly ahead in 12-15 of these races. The rest are a toss-up. The good news is, the Republican post-Kavanaugh polling bump seems to have evaporated, the less-good news is that anything can happen.

I have a good friend whose parents are right-wing, Trump voting, Christian evangelical, ethnically Chinese immigrants from South-East Asia. She told me it wasn't until the election that she opened her eyes to how openly racist they've always been.

Last year there was a news story about a family of Trump voting Syrians - who were then shocked when their family was separated by the Muslim travel ban. They thought they would be exempt because they were Christians. The thing about Trump's incoherent ranting is that it allows his supporters to discount any parts of it they don't like. They say oh, he didn't mean it, he isn't very eloquent and we have to make allowances, it was just a joke, I'm sure he isn't really a racist. And they can feel comfortable voting for Republicans because of the economy, or local issues, or because the Democratic candidate sounds too radical for them. It's not all of them - I think plenty of moderates have gotten too appalled to stick around - but it's more than you'd think.

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